KEY POINTS:
Eddie reckons Alan would struggle, but Alan reckons Eddie is promoting a myth and should have a look at his own coaching record.
That's the state of play after Alan Jones responded to fellow ex-Wallabies coach Eddie Jones' assertion that rugby had changed far too much for him to return to the national team job.
It might be 20 years since he last ran the Wallabies, but Alan Jones yesterday insisted people like his namesake were over complicating the task.
"I just think everyone pretends this is like mounting World War Five," he said. "Rugby is a pretty simple game. There are 15 players and there's a football. A coach has got to determine what you do with the 15 players and what you do with the football.
"One of the things you do is what they do in basketball and netball - you coach people to run into space and not into people. Our method and strategy has been bad."
Alan Jones insisted he would not decide whether to apply for the vacant Wallabies head coach job until next week, after the horse he co-owns, Miss Finland, contests today's Cox Plate.
He has until Friday to apply if he wants to and said he would not have to be approached. "I'm not one of these precious people," he said. Jones hit back at Eddie Jones over his claim that he would "struggle" if he returned as Wallabies coach, pointing to Eddie's record with Super 14 wooden spooners Queensland this year.
"He's one to talk about struggling. I promised Eddie that if he didn't say anything nasty about me I wouldn't remind everybody that he lost 11 games for Queensland, the last one by the tune of 94 points to three for God's sake.
"Who are these people to talk about coaching? This is a myth about the game changing. That's absolute nonsense."
Jones indicated there'd be a lot fewer peripheral staff attached to the Wallabies were he in charge.
"You don't need 18 people to coach a national side. You don't need 18 people to train Makybe Diva. This is not complicated, getting Australian rugby back on the rails.
"They are very, very good players, the method is wrong, I think the coaching strategies are wrong and they've been wrong for years."
Which strategies is he talking about?
"I mean this pick-and-drive stuff - you go to a boxing contest and if a bloke's on the deck you count him out. Here we are watching this boring rugby with players on the ground every minute. You're not worth two-bob on the deck. It requires someone to say: 'The methods of the past haven't got us anywhere - who can turn that around?'
"If I thought that I might, I may put my hand up. But I'm not saying anything to you now.
"There's been a whole heap of speculation this week. Do we go to the next step? Well, that's next week's question."
